Shrapnel

It was unclear what invoked this detonation,
The world has many stray matches,
A look,
A word,
A revelation,
But erupt it did nonetheless,

All I can glimpse is burning confetti,
Metal shards of a man,
Sharp as a tongue of a soul in pain,
The heat feels like tar on the skin,
As if I can touch the heartache in its mucus,
Munitions from a heart and mind imploded,

But observe,
Those piles of singed petals and broken glass,
That is what it looks like,
When a life becomes shrapnel,
Reduced to a sorry wreckage,
No phoenix here.

Flatline

I can’t keep that beeping out of my head,
That incessant crying,
The trilling of the heartbeat monitor,
Forced on when my heart was trod on,
Decibels striking my thoughts with scourges,
A result of things gone wrong,

That flatline,
Blades across eardrums,
But the bleeding has ceased,
Flesh is replaced with stone,
A warm soul is now calcified,
Heartache has given rise to blizzards,

I shed my person suit,
This is the demise of that former quintessence,
This war has made me cold,
Now it’s every man for himself,
Now let me embrace some chaos,
Now I embrace that beep.

Card Games

I find myself shuffling through life,
Forced to play this card game again,
I’m exhausted,
I’m tapped out,
This game of life is using rules I don’t recognise,
Hands growing aches aplenty,
Card upon card ripped from my deck,
And I struggle to draw the vigour,

Life has all the cards,
Counting down in blacks and reds,
No kings and queens to be found,
Yet I still go digging for diamonds,
Beaten down by wicked clubs,
Only spades waiting for me at the end,
Hearts in my pupils as the lights fade,
No ace up these sleeves.

Hamster Wheel

Let me off,
My life has become this wheel,
I grow tired of this rotating farce,
Each and every rung is the same,
Cheap plastic and flimsy build,
Run round,
Run round,

The scenery never changes,
The same streets and bus routes,
The same grey skies and pained mornings,
Let me off this hamster wheel,
My rodent heart could burst,
Taken by the horror of the whole thing,
Chance would be a fine thing.

Identity Crisis

The mirror lies,
I swear it,
It’s very sheen rippling with deceit,
Or perhaps malice,
It insults me with that foul image,
A reflection of some miscreation,
Is that who I am?
That creature,
Are those my eyes?
Those unfeeling oculi,
But I foolishly believed myself a man,
A higher primate,
A lie like a million glass shards,
Bad luck for a lifetime,
Denying my own monstrosity,
A crisis of the very self,
Carrying oneself as a somebody,
While being a nothing of a ghoul.

Glimmer

Hope,
It’s said to shine,
To glitter in luminescent butterflies,
Shades of all prisms,
It’s a currency we spend to continue our days,
A penny a day keeps despair at bay,

Hope,
It’s said to glimmer,
A diamond in your minds eye,
A beacon in the black,
The light at the end of a morose tunnel,
A reason to tread through another day,

Of course ofttimes it’s just a cheap bulb,
A train at the end of that tunnel,
Or perhaps it’s a marksman’s scope,
A trick of the sun,
Hope and optimism are manmade farces,
Reality is rarely so idyllic.

Treasure Hunt

We each have something we’re searching for,
All of us,
Across the seas and tectonics,
Through the years,
It is out there somewhere,
A lost treasure,
A jewelled cache of dreams,
Hiding just out of reach,

Not an object,
No relic or chalice,
Not really,
Nothing so droll,

But something grander,
Peace or family or happiness,
Your own hearth,
Or perhaps recognition of your sweat,
An immaterial nest egg,
Something to be cherished,
Not stuffed in a museum or vault,
A true everlasting treasure,

Never stop searching my friend.

Dust Of Memories

The past is dust,
Illusory and asphyxiating,
Memories kept in a domestic recreation,
A dolls house,
Boarded up windows and plastic veils,

Mental furniture coated in grey,
Left in that abandoned house,
Images of joy and grief,
Cracks filled with anger and serenity,
Dust unsettled by latter discourse,

It combats your urges to clean it up,
Caked deep on to chairs and tables,
Images burned into your brain,
You can’t wipe away this dust,
It remains in that house in your past.

Wildebeest And Wood Lice

We are not dire wolves,
We do not run in packs,
We’re not predators,
We are wildebeest,
We run in herds,
We are fodder,
Fearful of the brush all around,
Unsafe in our carnivorous habitat,

And like wood lice,
We retreat to our homely crevices,
Unsafe in our forms of chitin,
At the whiff of any danger,
Scurrying away from the intrusive light,
Decrying the suns ambush,
To this world we are prey,
We are wildebeest and wood lice.

Salted Earth

As fools we spite the land,
Cutting into her flesh with drill and scalpel,
Rubbing salt in the wounds,
A different kind of salted earth,
Her very flesh stolen as ore,
Her own blood wielded as torture,
A stinging iron maiden,
We rub it in,

Taking gifts with clawed hands,
Plundering and pillaging,
Diamonds and salt and gold,
We laugh all the way to the bank,
But we’ll be the fools,
Our own doomsayers,
As salted earth,
Becomes scorched earth.